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CIFOR–ICRAF publishes over 750 publications every year on agroforestry, forests and climate change, landscape restoration, rights, forest policy and much more – in multiple languages.

CIFOR–ICRAF addresses local challenges and opportunities while providing solutions to global problems for forests, landscapes, people and the planet.

We deliver actionable evidence and solutions to transform how land is used and how food is produced: conserving and restoring ecosystems, responding to the global climate, malnutrition, biodiversity and desertification crises. In short, improving people’s lives.

Background

The jurisdictional approach (JA) has garnered interest from stakeholders concerned about sustainable commodity production. JA is defined as an initiative on integrated landscape management based on policy-relevant boundaries and designed to advance high-level government involvement (Stickler et al. 2018)1. It is seen as one of the pathways for addressing challenges on the ground, by promoting multistakeholder collaboration, creating incentives or value proportions, and connecting the dots between different types of initiatives across levels or sectors (Seymour et al. 2020)2.

Stakeholders have increasingly adopted jurisdictional approaches as a solution to fulfilling their climate pledges. JA is promising because the programme- or project-based approach has failed to address the complexities associated with land tenure, which is one of the drivers of deforestation (Seymour et al. 2020)2. It has been perceived as an alternative to traditional conservation strategies (von Essen and Lambin 2021)3. It can advance cost efficiency and responsibility sharing to achieve sustainability progress and targets in jurisdictions (Tropical Forest Alliance 2021)4. It can also ensure sustainability in sourcing for businesses (Tropical Forest Alliance 2023)5.

JA has been implemented for forest conservation and sustainable commodity development worldwide, including in Pelalawan and Sintang regencies, where FoKSBI – a government-led multistakeholder platform for sustainable palm oil in Indonesia – became the driving force for regency action plans on sustainable palm oil. This session, entitled Scaling Jurisdictional Approaches in the Sustainable Palm Oil and Agriculture Sectors, is part of the Global Landscape Forum’s “New Vision for Earth” and is supported by the Walmart Foundation. We aim to share progress in and lessons learned from JA initiatives in Indonesia and beyond, particularly those relating to the palm oil and agriculture sectors. We expect to disseminate findings from CIFOR-ICRAF and partners’ JA projects. In addition, we will share preliminary findings on criteria and indicators for monitoring JA initiatives based on existing standard-setting initiatives.

Objectives

  1. Advance dissemination of progress and lessons learned from existing JA initiatives in the oil palm and agriculture sectors in Indonesia and beyond
  2. Discuss and obtain input on ideal criteria and indicators for monitoring JA initiatives
  3. Disseminate key findings and lessons learned to strengthen and scale out existing JA initiatives.

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Agenda

 

1 Stickler CM, et al. 2018. The state of jurisdictional sustainability. San Francisco, CA: Earth Innovation Institute/Bogor, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research/Boulder, CO: GCF Task Force
2 Seymour F, Aurora L, Arif J. 2020. The jurisdictional approach in Indonesia: Incentives, actions, and facilitating connections. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Vol. 3.
3 von Essen M and Lambin EF. 2021. Jurisdictional approaches to sustainable resource use. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 19(3):159–167.
4 Tropical Forest Alliance. 2021. Jurisdictional approach to sustainability: Lessons learnt from private sector action in Aceh Tamiang, Indonesia.
5 Tropical Forest Alliance, Proforest, CDP. 2023. Company landscape engagement for cocoa sustainability: Progress and the path forward.

Organizers

Climate Week NYC

Climate Week NYC is the largest annual climate event of its kind, bringing together some 400 events and activities across the City of New York – in person, hybrid and online. Each year, business leaders, political change makers, local decision takers and civil society representatives of all ages and backgrounds, from all over the world, gather to drive the transition, speed up progress, and champion change that is already happening.

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Agenda

SIBOS 2023: Partnering with CIFOR-ICRAF for a sustainable future

Today, humanity is facing a series of interrelated crises, ranging from poverty and hunger to land degradation, biodiversity loss, climate change and unsustainable supply chains. Yet the solutions extend far beyond the financial capacity of public coffers. The OECD estimates that USD 6.9 trillion a year is required up to 2030 to meet the world’s climate and development objectives alone. Without large-scale participation from the private sector, this funding won’t be achievable, and future generations will face a growing existential threat.

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Is your company on track to meet its sustainability targets?

Global businesses without sustainability goals are a rare breed nowadays. In 2022, around 96 percent of the world’s top 250 companies reported on sustainability, according to a KPMG survey. Finance companies are also recognizing the urgency to act and have formed the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, representing USD 130 trillion in assets under management. These commitments show an increasing awareness of the nexus between environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards and business value. However, many companies still struggle to meet the strict ESG criteria, thereby risking their reputations and possibly alienating their investors.

Why partner with CIFOR-ICRAF?

The Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) is an international research institute that can help organizations meet their sustainability goals through the latest knowledge on trees, forests and agroforestry landscapes. As a trusted partner with 40 years of peer-reviewed science, CIFOR-ICRAF has extensive expertise from action on the ground with local communities through to policy-level influence across the Global South – Africa, Asia and Latin America.

As part of its strategy to help solve today’s most pressing global challenges, CIFOR-ICRAF offers a range of services to help companies manage their reputational risks and achieve their goals with a partner that is a trusted international organization:

  • State-of-the-art analysis, monitoring and verification of land health and carbon sequestration
  • Project design and implementation
  • Advisory services
  • Training

Case studies: CIFOR-ICRAF partnerships with private companies

Managing water resources in Indonesia

Danone – The French food and beverage maker collaborated with CIFOR-ICRAF to formulate impactful initiatives aimed at ensuring a reliable water supply within the Rejoso watershed where they operate in East Java, Indonesia. The initiative involved the creation of co-investment schemes, a revival of a multi-stakeholder partnership forum at the district level, and sustainable financing schemes involving the government, the company, NGOs, and local farmers. CIFOR-ICRAF supported designing and piloting evidence-based strategies for integrated watershed and water resource management across the watershed’s upstream, midstream, and downstream areas. The enhancement may boost Danone’s profitability by ensuring a greater water supply for its bottled mineral water facilities.

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Transforming cocoa bean sustainability in West Africa

Barry Callebaut Group – The Swiss company, which supplies the global food and beverage maker Unilever with chocolate and cocoa, hired CIFOR-ICRAF to improve the sustainability of its cocoa bean supply in West Africa as a significant portion of the cocoa beans it sourced came from protected forests. Barry Callebaut invited CIFOR-ICRAF to develop a proposal for the remediation of cocoa and forest landscapes degradation through agroforestry. The investment was part of the engagement of Unilever to process deforestation-free cocoa. The project aimed to reduce the risk associated with the unsustainable cocoa bean supply and fulfill the company’s commitments to climate change mitigation and deforestation-free supply chains.

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Scaling oil palm agroforestry in Brazil

Natura – The Brazilian cosmetics company invited CIFOR-ICRAF in 2016 to co-lead the project Oil Palm Diversification: Reconciling conservation with livelihoods, with funding from USAID/Global Development Alliance, which focused on private-sector initiatives for scaling sustainable commodity production. CIFOR-ICRAF led the co-design of diversified oil palm technological options tailored to different farmer contexts in northeast Pará in the eastern Brazilian Amazon region. The project was instrumental in Natura’s decision to scale oil palm agroforestry, providing scientific inputs on agroforestry options best suited to different local contexts through a network of demonstration sites and landscape-level scaling studies. Natura is rolling out this strategy in northeast Pará, aiming to expand to 2,000 hectares of oil palm agroforestry.

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CIFOR-ICRAF: Facts & figures

  • More than 2,000 projects completed in 92 countries
  • 193 active partnerships to develop and implement transformative solutions
  • More than 25,000 publications and knowledge products available online
  • Headquarters in Indonesia and Kenya, offices in 25 countries, and more than 700 staff working in 60 countries across the Global South

Agenda

Brasil: Dia da Amazônia é dia de mobilização pelas agroflorestas

Oficinas comunitárias são uma oportunidade para agricultores familiares tirarem suas dúvidas sobre como implantar agroflorestas e quais benefícios elas trazem.

No Dia da Amazônia, CIFOR-ICRAF Brasil divulga os benefícios das agroflorestas. Foto: CIFOR-ICRAF Brasil.

No Brasil, a data de 05 de setembro marca a celebração pelo Dia da Amazônia. Para o CIFOR-ICRAF Brasil é dia de divulgação e mobilização pelas agroflorestas na Amazônia.

Nesta terça-feira (05), será realizada oficina comunitária no município de Concórdia do Pará para um bom diálogo com os agricultores e agricultoras familiares da comunidade Nova Galiléia sobre os benefícios das agroflorestas e as oportunidades com o Projeto Acelerador de Agroflorestas e Restauração, que está sendo implantado em municípios do Nordeste do Pará pelo CIFOR-ICRAF Brasil.

Esta não será a primeira vez que a equipe técnica do CIFOR-ICRAF vai à Concórdia do Pará. Para preparar uma oficina comunitária, e falar diretamente com os produtores, é necessária uma articulação antecipada.

“A mobilização para as oficinas comunitárias é feita, inicialmente, a partir de contatos com diversos atores representantes do município (secretarias, sindicatos, Empresa de Assistência Técnica e Extensão Rural – EMATER, entre outras instituições). Por meio desses representantes é realizada a aproximação com as lideranças das comunidades. Então, é realizada a oficina com as lideranças e, em seguida, com a comunidade interessada”, explicou Francinete Almeida, técnica agroflorestal do CIFOR-ICRAF Brasil.

Durante a oficina preparatória com as lideranças locais, realizada em junho, foram apresentadas algumas das atividades realizadas na Unidade Demonstrativa 01, que pertence ao agricultor Dedi Nascimento e está localizada na comunidade Nova Galiléia. Na ocasião, foi reforçado o papel da UD como uma área que será utilizada pelo projeto Acelerador e pelo município para treinamentos e capacitações em sistemas agroflorestais (SAFs).

A oficina comunitária é um momento para explicar o que são agroflorestas e suas vantagens e as possibilidades aportadas pelo Projeto Acelerador de Agroflorestas e Restauração. Além de recuperar áreas improdutivas ou degradadas, apoiar a regularização ambiental de agricultores familiares e diversificar a produção de alimentos (para consumo próprio ou para venda), o projeto vai viabilizar mecanismos para participação no mercado de créditos de carbono, além de capacitar técnicos (as) agroflorestais para ofertar assistência aos agricultores familiares.

A realização da oficina conta com o apoio da Secretaria Municipal de Agricultura (SEMAGRI) e da Conselheira Elizete Moreira.

“No Dia da Amazônia, será importante ressaltar a necessidade de recuperação de áreas degradadas ou improdutivas. Além disso, os sistemas agroflorestais são muito importantes para a segurança alimentar das famílias e para a diversificação de produtos que serão colocados à venda pelos agricultores. Restaurar com agrofloresta, é dizer sim a vida; é confirmar que queremos garantir a biodiversidade e uma vida melhor para as próximas gerações”, concluiu Francinete Almeida.

Autora: Denise Oliveira – d.oliveira@cifor-icraf.org 

Africa Climate Week

The annual Africa Climate Week (ACW) brings together international organizations, government leaders, the private sector and civil society to address the pressing challenges of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the climate crisis. This year, ACW 2023 will take place from 4-8 September in Nairobi, Kenya, hosted by the Government of Kenya. It will run alongside the Africa Climate Summit (ACS) which will run from 4-6 September, also hosted by the Government of Kenya.

Event website

Agenda

Capacitação em Sistemas Agroflorestais no Pará

Grupo de estudantes de especialização em restauração ambiental recebeu capacitação do CIFOR-ICRAF Brasil.

Alunos e professores do Curso de Especialização em Restauração Ambiental e Sistemas Agroflorestais na Amazônia, Belém (Pará), junho de 2023. Foto: Ianca Moreira.

Brazil_ Agricultores familiares, integrantes de movimentos sociais, quilombolas, indígenas, técnicos e professores do campo participaram da capacitação em diagnóstico, co-desenho e análise de desempenho de arranjos de Sistemas Agroflorestais (SAFs), ministrada por equipe do CIFOR-ICRAF Brasil no âmbito do Curso de Especialização em Restauração Ambiental e Sistemas Agroflorestais na Amazônia.

As metodologias que o CIFOR-ICRAF Brasil utiliza para co-desenho de arranjos agroflorestais baseados nos contextos foram apresentadas ao grupo de estudantes em junho de 2023, no campus experimental da Embrapa Oriental em Tomé-Açu, Pará. Durante a capacitação foi também realizada oficina prática de co-desenho em grupos, culminando com a apresentação e discussão de desenhos de arranjos agroflorestais entre toda a turma de aproximadamente 40 alunos e alunas.A metodologia parte do princípio de que se tratando de sistemas agroflorestais, pacotes prontos são muito pouco adequados para as diferentes realidades como as encontradas na Amazônia. O método de co-desenho é orientado por um conjunto de indicadores, que incluem desde as aspirações e aptidões da família, passando por acesso a recursos, características das espécies, até logística e mercado, resultando em arranjos mais adequados a cada realidade que por sua vez garantem melhores resultados tanto na adoção quanto na permanência dos sistemas.

A Especialização em Restauração Ambiental e Sistemas Agroflorestais na Amazônia é promovida em parceria entre o Instituto Amazônico de Agricultura Familiar (INEAF) da Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), Universidade Federal Rural da Amazônia (UFRA), Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (EMBRAPA) e o Centro de Cooperação Internacional em Pesquisa Agronómica para o Desenvolvimento (CIRAD), contando com o apoio do CIFOR-ICRAF Brasil para a última etapa realizada.

Autora: Denise Oliveira – d.oliveira@cifor-icraf.org 

Africa Climate Science Symposium: CCDA XI

The annual conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA) is traditionally convened each year ahead of the UNFCCC Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC (COP). The annual conference brings together different African stakeholder groups on climate change to discuss key climate change and development challenges facing the continent as well as identify opportunities and solutions. The conference promotes evidence-based and analytically grounded contributions that feed into the African common position meetings in the international discourse on climate change. For the first time this year, the CCDA is featuring science on the agenda.

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Agenda

Universitas Sriwijaya and CIFOR-ICRAF to continue working together on landscape restoration and other critical issues

Prof Anis Saggaff, rector of Sriwijaya University and Dr Robert Nasi, chief operating officer of CIFOR-ICRAF posed after signing the memorandum of understanding. Photo by Public Relations Unit/Sriwijaya University

A renewed formal collaboration between the university and the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) will stimulate research into ways to effectively and efficiently restore landscapes and address other critical issues.

Universitas Sriwijaya is based in Palembang, in Indonesia’s South Sumatra Province, which has hundreds of thousands of hectares of degraded peatland. The renewed research agreement contributes to the global community’s effort to intensify restoration of the world’s degraded land through mechanisms such as the Land Degradation Neutrality framework of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and the Bonn Challenge. The agreement also contributes specifically to the Government of Indonesia’s efforts to restore an estimated 12 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, of which 2 million is degraded peatland. Research into site-specific techniques, especially in populated landscapes, is crucial for ensuring the success of such programmes; many restoration projects have failed by not fully understanding their landscape and the people in it.

Achieving this ambition in a mere seven years will require all stakeholders to work together in a coordinated manner, with appropriate funding, monitoring and adjustments. The two organizations are keen to assist the government achieve its goals through applied research into new restoration methods – particularly those suited to degraded peatland – and ways of increasing the scale of successful methods efficiently and effectively.

The collaboration document, in the form of a memorandum of understanding (MoU), was signed by the Rector of Universitas Sriwijaya Anis Saggaff and CIFOR-ICRAF’s Chief Operating Officer Robert Nasi at the university’s campus in Palembang on 21 August 2023.

“We have been collaborating under the first 5-year MoU as part of the project, Sustainable Community-based Reforestation and Enterprises or SCORE,” said Nasi during the signing ceremony. “The research has already been successful after just two years of implementation: we have developed a new ‘agrosilvofishery’ approach that can be increased in scale across related peatlands.”

Collaboration is key to successful peat restoration: Farmers participating in an agrosilvofishery model in Perigi village, South Sumatra posed together with scientists from two institutions, CIFOR-ICRAF and Sriwijaya university. Photo by Heru Komarudin/CIFOR-ICRAF

Led by Himlal Baral, a senior restoration scientist with CIFOR-ICRAF, the research team, which includes researchers from UNSRI and the National Institute of Forest Science of the Republic of Korea, have created a 13-hectare demonstration site in collaboration with farmers that showcases the agrosilvofishery approach, which combines rice, trees and fishponds on a single plot.

CIFOR-ICRAF has also engaged with universities, including UNSRI, to conduct two series of a Young Scientist Incubator Programme, which involved more than 100 fresh graduates in training, field data collection and writing of site-specific cases of peat ecosystem livelihoods in the province.

“We can further strengthen the relationship between CIFOR-ICRAF and UNSRI in conducting studies and research, especially related to peatland and mangrove restoration,” said Saggaff. “The peatland restoration pilot project is in Perigi Village, Ogan Komering Ilir District. We also have another collaboration activity in mangrove restoration in Sungsang Village, Banyuasin District. I believe that this cooperation can be further expanded into other aspects of forestry to gain new knowledge in order to improve the recovery of degraded natural resources and also improve the welfare of surrounding communities.”

The mangrove project is just beginning. It aims to contribute to understanding how best to restore mangroves in Indonesia, where around 1.82 million of the 3.31 million hectares covered with mangrove forests are currently degraded – another large figure that creates an equally large challenge for restoration programmes. The collaboration expects to provide models for restoration that address the drivers of deforestation by creating economic and environmentally friendly solutions.

Other projects by CIFOR-ICRAF in South Sumatra Province include: Improving the Management of Peatlands and the Capacities of Stakeholders in Indonesia (Peat-IMPACTS Indonesia), funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV); and Sustainable Landscapes for Climate-Resilient Livelihoods (Land4Life), funded by Global Affairs Canada. Both projects are aligned with the national target of restoring and rehabilitating peat ecosystems in Indonesia, and cover 18 villages in Ogan Komering Ilir, Banyuasin and Musi Banyuasin districts. The Government of South Sumatra is also receiving assistance to develop a Peat Ecosystem Protection and Management Plan. In addition to providing education on sustainable peatland management to youth, CIFOR-ICRAF has been working with the provincial and district governments to produce local curricula on sustainable peat ecosystems that are now part of formal processes in elementary schools in Ogan Komering Ilir and Banyuasin districts.

For more information, contact Himlal Baral: h.baral@cifor-icraf.org.

Peat ecosystems play an important role in climate change mitigation (as carbon sinks) and are biodiversity hotspots. Efforts to preserve and restore peat ecosystems must include well-designed measures to plan and manage the ecosystems and to control inevitable adverse impacts, ensuring their functions to generate ecological and societal benefits. Though peatlands cover only 3-4% of global area, over 25 million hectares of peatlands are in Southeast Asia. Sustainable peatland management in Southeast Asia can draw on and learn from the experiences of Indonesia, which is home to more than 80%1 of peatlands in the region.

Protection and sustainable management of peatland in Indonesia occurs through structured actions covering aspects of planning, utilization, control, maintenance, and supervision The availability of guidance documents for monitoring and evaluating peat ecosystem protection and management plans can become a useful reference. The implementation of policies, plans, and programs for the protection, management, and restoration of peatlands to date offers learning materials that can be of interest to stakeholders in the region. For example, to protect and management peat ecosystems, the Government of Indonesia has national regulations2 and implementing regulations from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF)3 represent Indonesia’s strong commitment to the protection of peatlands ecosystems.

In response to the request and needs from ASEAN Member States (AMS) during the 3rd Programme Steering Committee for knowledge exchange and peer learning between the countries on regulatory framework of peatland management, the Measurable Action for Haze-Free Southeast Asia (MAHFSA) program is supporting the promotion of haze-free agriculture and sustainable peatland management in Southeast Asia by collating, synthesizing and disseminating relevant knowledge products. In collaboration with the Directorate of Peat Destruction Control of the Directorate General of Pollution and Environmental Degradation Control of Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF), CIFOR will organize a knowledge-sharing event as way of strengthening AMS policymakers’ knowledge on peat protection planning and management.

Objectives

The objectives of the knowledge sharing event are:

  1. to provide a forum for AMS to exchange knowledge and learn from other countries experience on regulatory and institutional framework for the protection and management of peat ecosystems,
  2. to provide opportunity for AMS to equip relevant peatland management agencies and institutions on the design of peatland protection and management planning systems learning from the experience of Indonesia. 

Outputs

The expected outputs of the knowledge sharing event are:

  1. participants learn about Indonesia’s peat ecosystem protection and management planning systems, including utilization, control, and monitoring aspects;
  2. participants learn how Indonesia links peatland management to other national strategic plans; and
  3. identification of any relevance of the Indonesia planning and administrative systems with the national administrative systems of other AMS.

Contact: Swetha Peteru (s.peteru@cifor-icraf.org)

Agenda

   

Organizers

1 Executive Summary of the Final Review of the ASEAN Peatland Management Strategy (APMS) 2006-2020.
2 Government Regulation No. 57 of 2016 on the Protection and Management of Peatland Ecosystems
3 Regulation 60 of 2019 on the Procedures for Preparation, Determination, and Amendment of Peatland Ecosystem Protection Management Plans and Regulation 246 of 2020 on Protection Plans and National Peat Ecosystem Management 2020-2049
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The 2015 forest and land fires in Indonesia marked a transformation in peatland management and forest and land fire prevention. Since then, the initiative has been strengthened by including the restoration of degraded peat and increasing forest and land fire prevention efforts.

In 2019, fires reoccurred in various places in Indonesia although on a smaller scale. Programs, campaigns and efforts for ‘zero burning’ and restoration of peat continue to be encouraged. The extent to which these efforts and approaches are successful will be tested in the future as the dry season is projected to expand.

CIFOR-ICRAF, PSB UNRI and Sedagho Siak facilitated the development of community-based fire prevention models in Kampung Kayu Ara Permai and Penyengat, Siak District with support from the Temasek Foundation and the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise. The development of this model is part of participatory action research that has been carried out since 2021 in Siak and is a scaling-up of similar research in Bengkalis from 2018 to 2020.

This research is part of a larger program that aims to support the achievement of the long-term goal of peat restoration through changing people’s behavior in preparing land without burning it. The models initiated demonstrate the potential for sustainable peat management through the selection of commodities and the adoption of peat-friendly practices. We aim to transfer findings and knowledge to other stakeholders for further scaling-up.

As part of this effort, we have developed a toolbox comprising of four publications on community-based fire prevention and peatland restoration, which will be launched in the Dialogue and Publications Soft Launching “Strengthening Fire Prevention in the Dry Season and El-Niño through Community-Based Peat Restoration in the Digital Age” on 30 August 2023.

Objective

The objective of this event is to disseminate research findings and launch/introduce the toolbox.

Contact: Dyah Puspitaloka (d.puspitaloka@cifor-icraf.org)

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